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by subw00f 957 days ago
This is nuts. Who charges you? Is it the company that makes these devices? What if you want a different “provider”?
1 comments

Stanford Healthcare charges me for "general classification" just for a nurse to open up their computer and see that there are zero events.

Boston Scientific, the device maker, does not have an interface for patients, they only send data to hospitals directly.

I'm not currently willing to switch to a different ICD because Boston Scientific's ICD has successfully saved my life 3/3 times in out-of-hospital situations and 2/2 times during in-hospital testing where they induced ventricular vibrillation in controlled testing and I'd rather not risk trying something different. Insurance wouldn't pay for an extra surgery deemed unnecessary, anyway.

I could switch healthcare providers, but I'm not sure if the others in my area are better at cardiology.

I see you have your hands full, but perhaps a class action lawsuit should be in order.
> Stanford Healthcare charges me for "general classification" just for a nurse to open up their computer and see that there are zero events.

Okay so having access to the data wouldn't change a thing, surely you'd be charged even more if you wanted to talk directly to the cardiologist to do a report yourself, as you said?

> inform my cardiologist that there are no events and that there is nothing new to diagnose